Understanding American Exceptionalism

By David Nordmark

Is America an Exceptional Nation? If so, how did it get that way? Are the qualities that made America exceptional still in existence today? Just what does this phrase mean anyway?

In Understanding American Exceptionalism, David Nordmark explores the roots of just what made America unique to begin with. He looks at how America's "Bottom Up" style of government allowed for the creation of an exceptional people and nation. He then explores the reasons why American exceptionalism is fading, and what the consequences of this are for itself and the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Nordmark
• Release date: Aug 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465878045

David Nordmark

In the past D.M. Nordmark has written on many topics, including fitness and political science. Currently he is focused on writing fiction and exploring the Covid debacle. Non corporate media entities who wish to interview him on the subject of Covid can reach him at [e-mail].

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America: Understanding American Exceptionalism

Published by David Nordmark

Copyright 2013 David Nordmark

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Table of Contents

The Americans

American Exceptionalism

The Bottom Up Society

Consequential Knowledge

Citizens vs. Subjects

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Health of a Society

We The People

Tocqueville’s America and the Birth of American Exceptionalism

Religious Life in Early America

The Family in Early America

Community Life in Early America

Economy / Occupation in Early America

The Exceptional American Character

Modern American Exceptionalism

The Exceptional American Military

Large and Nimble

Fading Exceptionalism - America Today

From Bottom Up to Top Down

The Family in Modern America

Community and Local Government

The Economy in Modern America

Religion in Modern America

America in Twilight

The Americans (revisited)

Can America Turn It Around?

Appendix

Ankeatude

Natural Law

Selected Bibliography

Books

Website and Articles

About the Author

The Americans

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French, and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971, and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous, and possibly the least-appreciated, people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Well who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan, and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. And I was there -- I saw that. When distant cities are hit by earthquake, it is the United States that hurries into help, Managua, Nicaragua, is one of the most recent examples.

So far this spring, fifty-nine American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan, the Truman Policy, all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, war-mongering Americans.

Now, I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on now, you, let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times, and, safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They're right here on our streets in Toronto. Most of them, unless they're breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend up here.

When the Americans get out of this bind -- as they will -- who could blame them if they said the hell with the rest of the world. Let somebody else buy the bonds. Let somebody else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes." When the railways of France, and Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of 'em are still broke.

I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I